A non-iterative formula for straightening fillings of Young diagrams

Young diagrams are fundamental combinatorial objects in representation theory and algebraic geometry. Many constructions that rely on these objects depend on variations of a straightening process that expresses a filling of a Young diagram as a sum of semistandard tableaux subject to certain relations. This paper solves the long standing open problem of giving a non-iterative formula for straightening a filling. We apply our formula to give a complete generalization of a theorem of Gonciulea and Lakshmibai.